1
Jared
“Say that again. Let me make sure I heard that right,” I growl at the man standing opposite my desk.
Mason, my head of security, the man I’ve trusted for years to do my bidding, the guy who’s never let me down—until now—fidgets at my tone. And he’s right to. The fury building inside me will need an outlet soon if what he’s attempting to tell me is correct.
He clears his throat, tension riding his shoulders. “I’m sorry, Mr. Prince. We had him under full surveillance last night, but this morning…he wasn’t there. We think he sniffed out one of my men and bribed the takeout guy to swap places with him.” Another throat clearance. “And slipped out in his disguise.”
“He slipped out dressed as the takeout guy.”
He winces at my deadpan response. “Yes, sir.”
“And how long were you unaware that you’d lost track of the man I asked you to keep an eye on?”
The towering man I’d personally recruited straight from the military seven years ago shrinks into himself. “Eight hours, sir.”
My jaw tightens until I feel my teeth grind. “So what you’re saying is that Warren Michaels could be anywhere in the world by now.”
Mason doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. His failure is written all over his face. I open my mouth to fire him. It would be no hardship at all since it’s well-known that I don’t suffer fools gladly. What grates is that I’d trusted him.
I’m not a man who trusts easily. I’ve been let down at every step of my thirty-five years. Mason will just be one in a long line of people fucking me over.
My gaze strays to the bank of screens behind him.
To the image of the other person I’ve been watching for weeks now. The camera caught her looking over her shoulder, a light breeze ruffling the rich chestnut hair piled up on her head in a careless knot.
A few strands had escaped, teasing her peach-smooth cheek. One particularly stubborn strand clings to her ruby-red lips and my cock hardens all over again at the torment and promise of that mouth.
I’ve stroked off to the image of that mouth more times in the last few weeks than I care to count. The hunger and desperation have only intensified.
She’s insanely gorgeous from every angle, but when she looks as shy and innocent as she does in this particular frame, I find it impossible to take my eyes off her.
It’s torture to drag my gaze away right now and refocus on Mason.
“And the girl? You better not fucking tell me you’ve lost her too,” I snarl, my voice thick with dread and arousal. If he has, I’ll rip him apart piece by piece and throw his body parts off my one-hundred-and-tenth-floor balcony.
He shakes his head frantically, eager to let me know he hasn’t fucked up his other task.
“Miss Michaels left home and stopped by the coffee shop to get her usual soy milk latte before going to her ballet class. I checked in with my men ten minutes ago. She’s still there.”
Skye Michaels, daughter of Warren Michaels, CFO of my company, Prince Holdings before I discovered he was yet another person screwing me over, stealing from me to the tune of millions of dollars and squirreling them away in offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands.
He assumed that a multi-billionaire with…social issues wouldn’t miss the money. And he almost got away with it. His greed was eventually his undoing.
Greedisthe fatal flaw that always leads to their downfall.
That and underestimating me.
They imagine I’m defective because I’m a recluse. That because I don’t stray below the five penthouse suites I own at the top of the tallest residential tower in New York City, that I’m a chump they can take advantage of.
One by one they’ve all learned their mistake, starting with the worst culprit of all—my father.
Fury churns my gut at the thought of that bastard, and I push him from my mind.
“Do you want us to keep watching the girl, sir?”
My gaze returns to the screen. My insides twist in hunger and my skin burns with need. I drag air into my lungs, but it does nothing to settle me.